Maybe It Was
by Psalm23.6
Summary: Maybe it was true that Black Widow and Captain America were together. Maybe it was true that the past never really goes away.


**Hello! Thank you for stopping by and reading this little one-shot of mine. I was bored, felt like writing fanfiction, and created this little thing. The beginning of Nat in the nightmare choking someone was actually from another author, though I no longer remember their name. The origin, though, is entirely theirs and I do not wish to take credit for it. Steve comforting her is also from that accidentally forgotten writer. If said writer is you, please let me know so that I may correct myself. Besides that, please enjoy and review!**

She closed her fingers around his windpipe, determined to end him, to make him pay for all the crimes he had committed and would commit if this did not end _now_. He thrashed, hands over her hands, trying to stop the steady progress that would turn him red, then blue, then white, like an ironic American flag. She gave another squeeze, felt him thrash again while she grinned, her red lipstick smeared across both of their mouths. Now even his wife would know.

"Nat." Momentarily her fingers paused, confused that this random man, nothing more than her assignment, somehow knew her real name. "Nat, it's me. Wake up."

Wake up? She was awake. She was completing her mission. She was . . .

She was choking Steve Rogers.

Her hands fell away and the trembling started immediately, so violent Steve could see it in the dark. He reached for her in an attempt to calm her, but she shrank away, suddenly afraid to touch him. Nevertheless he reached for her again, almost catching her wrist before she slipped away, running so stealthily she seemed to be made of shadows. He ran after her, much clumsier, crashing into the bathroom door just as she slammed it shut.

"Nat please!" He knocked on it so hard splinters came off in his hand. "Nat!"

"Go away Steve! Go away and leave me to rot like the monster I am." He heard the tears in her voice, the ones she was fighting off valiantly but that he knew would eventually best her. She might pretend to not be human, but he knew she was. "Get out of here Rogers, before it comes back."

"No." He sat down heavily enough that she could hear it through the door. "I won't leave you."

"Never leave a man behind." She muttered bitterly.

"Talk to me Nat, so that it doesn't come back."

"Talk to you," she whispered, sarcasm covering her pain. "Talk to you about the nightmares and the Red Room and the operation and the hollowness and the nightmares and the shattered dreams and the pain and the Red Room and the operation and the hollowness and the nightmares."

"Yes." The word was strong and sure. "Talk to me about all of it, before it eats you alive and leaves me with nothing but the shell of the beautiful woman I once knew." Just like Peggy.

She flung the door open, her aura telling him to not touch her. Marching with a quivering but strong chin she returned to bed, folding herself inside the bedsheets. He lay inches away from her, waiting for her to come out of her cocoon.

Finally, she turned back over, the green-gray eyes shining in the dark. "I can't."

"There's nothing stopping you." He tucked a stray piece of red hair behind her ear. "You're strong Nat, you can do anything."

"Including strangle Captain American." A single tear made a track down her cheek and disappeared off the edge of her chin. "I'm sorry."

The words took strength, and he pulled her close, chin on top of her head. "You don't have to apologize. You didn't mean it."

"I did. In my dream, I was going to kill you. You, a warped version of you at least, were one of my assignments." The word 'assignments' broke the dam. She became an endless fountain, a waterfall.

Nightmares attacked her every night, where she relived the murders of entire families. The Red Room had been the origin of such attacks and thus she returned to it in nightmares as well. The operation had taken her ability to have children away and this operation often returned in nightmares as well, as now children were something she wanted. This inability filled her with extreme hollowness that nothing, not even Avengers missions, could satisfy. The hollowness shattered her dreams of any happy, calm future in the middle of nowhere with no need for an alias. Sometimes, when the reality of her lack of a future became too real, she was coated in a sharp physical pain that couldn't be shaken. He listened without interrupting until the end.

"But you do have a future." He leaned back to look into her eyes. "Every day you beat your past back, you secure another day for your future. Maybe you can't see it yet, but it's unrolling. A beautiful future," he kissed her deeply, her hand on his chest feeling the thump of his heart that proved this moment was real. "A beautiful future that I want to share with you Nat. I love you."

"That sounded like a proposal old man." Her smirk was back and he relaxed at the sight of it, finally seeing proof that his Nat had returned.

He kissed her again, pulled her closer though it seemed impossible. "Maybe it was."

She froze, retracted, the smirk overshadowed by the pain in her eyes. "You don't mean that. You can't. Not when I can't give you," she swallowed thickly, "don't you want them?"

"Of course." His smile was small, understanding of all hesitancy, all past pain that came back in droves. "But that doesn't mean we couldn't adopt. And if you don't feel ready for kids, we can get a dog." He kissed her nose. "Or a cat. Whichever you prefer."

She smiled, kissing him back. "Both. Because you're a dog and I'm a cat and we'll need one to balance the other."

"That sounded like an acceptance young lady."

Her kiss tasted like electricity. "Maybe it was."

 **Thank you for reading! Please leave a review so that I can become a better writer and enjoy your day.**


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